Why I was never in a band.

The main reason is that I have absolutely no musical talent. The other reason was my school. I thought this when I saw Sing Street, a new film about five Irish schoolboys forming a band in the 1980s. Although their school was in Dublin and mine was in London, they were practically identical. All boys, quite hard, predominantly Irish and brutally Catholic. Not an ounce of flamboyance or theatricality, so forming a Madness or a Spandau Ballet would have been unthinkable. But Martin Gamble had a go. Like the boy in Sing Street, he and his band bravely took to the stage at the school disco, where nobody wanted the punk and funk interrupted. They were called Exodus and Martin said “We’ve got a new album out. It’s called Bob Marley & The Wailers”. This failed to placate a horrible, unappreciative crowd but I still think it was a very good line.